ed down to the pavement, but the royal lady remained unhurt,
and the spectators of the cruel ordeal cried _Deo gratias!_ Richardis,
however, retired after this disgrace to a cloister which she had
founded.

The same accusation was raised later against Kunigunde, wife of the last
Saxon emperor, Henry II. the Pious, but she, too, was exonerated by the
ordeal of "the hot iron" upon which she trod with impunity. Kunigunde
has been canonized by the Church for having preserved her virginity also
in married life, and for having forced the devil to church building.

The moral life of the higher classes was duly reflected in the lower
walks of life. The female serfs, who, as we learn from imperial decrees
of the time, when they did not work in the fields, carried on their
domestic labors in a separate house, called _screona_ (shrine), were
practically helpless in the hands of their masters. Those out-houses
were frequently used as places for gratifying lust by forcing their
inmates to sin, though nominal fines still prevailed for rape or
violence: he who "covered" (_belag_) a maid "without her thanks," _i.
e._, against her will, paid a fine of three shillings; if she was a
head-maid, or a stewardess or skilled laborer, six shillings. Thus it
happened that as early as the time of Charlemagne the women's house came
to have the flavor of infamy _Frauenhduser_ was the name of houses of
prostitution during the Middle Ages. Unfree women could marry only with
the permission of their masters; the bridegroom had, in recognition of
this fact, to pay a tax (_maritagium_) called by different obscene names
in different localities, as a redemption, as it were, of the bride's
virginity. Naturally, the female serf was helpless against the lord, who
did what he pleased: a shameful abuse, which, in the course of time,
crystallized into a right; the infamous _jusprinuz noctis, i. e._, the
right of the lord to the body of his unfree female serf during the first
night of her married life. The several attempts to relegate this usage
to the realm of legends have signally failed. Both Scherr and Freytag
expatiate on this gloomy subject, on which a whole legal and cultural
literature has sprung up. Passing quickly over this saddest of all the
chapters of human subjection to shame, many a beautiful feature of the
growth of womanhood among the lower classes may be noted.

With the general improvements of agriculture under Charlemagne, there
was a corres